DOTs move to make better communities, not just faster roads

Over and over again, DOTs found themselves fighting with local governments, environmental groups, historic preservationists and community activists. The fault lines typically broke in a familiar way. Engineers wanted to widen roads, take out trees or sidewalks, and bulk up bridges, where opponents thought a simple repaving or minor bridge fix would do. Gradually DOTs began to see that they had to become more flexible if they wanted to finish projects rather than haggle over them. Scott Bradley, head of landscape architecture for the Minnesota DOT, puts it this way: “The old cookbook approach of using design guidelines and cranking it through the computer to tell us what the physical form of a road should be no longer flew.”

The initial response within the highway engineering profession came to be known in the late 1990s as “context-sensitive design.” No longer would engineers design roads as though only asphalt dimensions mattered. Now, they would take into account the surroundings. Is the road going through a scenic landscape? An urban neighborhood? A shopping district? Settings mattered. Process mattered, too: DOTs would ask stakeholders, typically the very people who had been holding up projects, how they wanted the roadway designed.

Suddenly, long-stalled road projects began moving again. . . .

Context-sensitive design often produced better results, but the process was still flawed. DOTs continued to view public outreach as an afterthought. Moreover, many engineers came to think of superficial treatments — brick-clad overpasses or medians planted with wildflowers — as wampum for buying off community opposition. Engineers preferred to fixate on aesthetics rather than meddle with their underlying assumptions about roadways.
“Context-sensitive design” has evolved into “context-sensitive solutions.” The difference is much more than semantics.

A recent project in Connecticut, heralded as context-sensitive design, is an odd case in point. The state DOT built a downtown bridge in the city of Willimantic that is playfully presided over by four giant statues of frogs — an homage to the loud bullfrogs that surprised early settlers there in the 1700s. The “frog bridge” is now a popular local attraction. But don’t expect to find anybody walking across it, says Norman Garrick, a University of Connecticut engineering professor. “It’s still a hostile environment for pedestrians,” he notes. “DOTs in most states still think that context-sensitive design has something to do with beautifying the road and aesthetic treatments. They’ve not come to grips with how roads that are designed like highways in the middle of cities affect the urbanity of the place.”

That shortcoming is what engineers are now addressing. This is where the true revolution in thinking about highways begins. “Context-sensitive design” has evolved into “context-sensitive solutions.” The difference is much more than semantics. “Design” assumed, as engineers always had, that transportation problems required some sort of construction to fix them. “Solutions” implies a broader, more objective view — one that may not result in any road construction at all. It also suggests that community stakeholders might have better ideas for how to address problems than engineers do.